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Vigil Harbor
When two unexpected visitors arrive in an insular coastal village, they threaten the equilibrium of a community already confronting climate instability, political violence, and domestic upheavals—a cast of unforgettable characters from the rich imagination of the National Book Award–winning, best-selling author of Three Junes.
A decade from now, in the historic town of Vigil Harbor, there is a rash of divorces among the yacht-club set, a marine biologist despairs at the state of the world, a spurned wife is bent on revenge, and the renowned architect Austin Kepner pursues a passion for building homes designed to withstand the escalating fury of relentless storms. Austin’s stepson, Brecht, has dropped out of college in New York and returned home after narrowly escaping one of the terrorist acts that, like hurricanes, have become increasingly common.
Then two strangers arrive: a stranded traveler with subversive charms and a widow seeking clues about a past lover with ties to Austin—a woman who may have been more than merely human. These strangers and their hidden motives come together unexpectedly in an incident that endangers lives—including Brecht’s—with dramatic repercussions for the entire town.
Vigil Harbor reveals Julia Glass in all her virtuosity, braiding multiple voices and dazzling strands of plot into a story where mortal longings and fears intersect with immortal mysteries of the deep as well as of the heart.
A decade from now, in the historic town of Vigil Harbor, there is a rash of divorces among the yacht-club set, a marine biologist despairs at the state of the world, a spurned wife is bent on revenge, and the renowned architect Austin Kepner pursues a passion for building homes designed to withstand the escalating fury of relentless storms. Austin’s stepson, Brecht, has dropped out of college in New York and returned home after narrowly escaping one of the terrorist acts that, like hurricanes, have become increasingly common.
Then two strangers arrive: a stranded traveler with subversive charms and a widow seeking clues about a past lover with ties to Austin—a woman who may have been more than merely human. These strangers and their hidden motives come together unexpectedly in an incident that endangers lives—including Brecht’s—with dramatic repercussions for the entire town.
Vigil Harbor reveals Julia Glass in all her virtuosity, braiding multiple voices and dazzling strands of plot into a story where mortal longings and fears intersect with immortal mysteries of the deep as well as of the heart.
417 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 3, 2022
361 people are currently reading
11610 people want to read
About the author
Julia Glass
15 books832 followersJulia Glass is the author of
Three Junes
, which won the 2002 National Book Award for Fiction, and
The Whole World Over
. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her short fiction has won several prizes, including the Tobias Wolff Award and the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Medal for the Best Novella. She lives with her family in Massachusetts.
Her new novel, I See You Everywhere is scheduled for release October 14, 2008.
Her new novel, I See You Everywhere is scheduled for release October 14, 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 319 reviews
August 17, 2023
I have to keep this one short as I'm short on time but I really enjoyed this. This takes place post-pandemic and many things in the world have gone even more pear-shaped. Vigil Harbor is a sort of a coastal cul-de-sac and very much at a remove from many of the bad things happening. The story takes place over about a week and centers on the ripples of upheaval created by two new arrivals in town.
It is pretty slow going a tale for about half of the book but it did keep my interest. There are quite a few narrators and I liked that. Glass has a way with description that made this a very vivid read. There are some threads that weren't my thing. I didn't care for the selkie tangents. In fairness, I'm very particular about magical realism and have only come across a couple authors who hit the right note for me as a reader. This wasn't one of those. Still, my interest didn't wane. I admit to finding the obsession of two characters for a long dead character named Issa more delved into than I really cared about. But the rest, was a joy to read. The questions of what to keep, what to discard, how to process loss was so well done. I'm glad I came across this to read.
This was my first read by Glass and I would read another. Recommended.
It is pretty slow going a tale for about half of the book but it did keep my interest. There are quite a few narrators and I liked that. Glass has a way with description that made this a very vivid read. There are some threads that weren't my thing. I didn't care for the selkie tangents. In fairness, I'm very particular about magical realism and have only come across a couple authors who hit the right note for me as a reader. This wasn't one of those. Still, my interest didn't wane. I admit to finding the obsession of two characters for a long dead character named Issa more delved into than I really cared about. But the rest, was a joy to read. The questions of what to keep, what to discard, how to process loss was so well done. I'm glad I came across this to read.
This was my first read by Glass and I would read another. Recommended.
May 8, 2022
You may be like me – among those who have no interest in reading about pandemic-anything. Well… that’s what I thought… until I read this novel. It is actually set a decade from now, but with flashbacks to the era of early pandemic-ness, when everything changed.
And yet… I adored this book. I didn’t expect to feel comforted the way I did – and maybe even validated about my own concerns over the past two years. I found myself nodding and feeling understood. And, somehow, even in the uncertain future painted within this book, I felt hope (more below).
The novel is told through a series of first-person narratives – nine, if I counted correctly. In Julia Glass’s capable hands, this technique works, and works well, as the reader gets a deep dive into the emotions of all the characters -- two young adults (one who writes poetry, one an actor), a biologist, a retired English teacher, an architect, a mother running a home-school co-op, and others facing a world with startling new realities – shrinking shorelines, a growing scarcity of specific food items, escalated terrorism activity, intense deportation laws.
When I requested this book, I had no idea there would be such an emphasis on environmental topics, but as we – in real life – inch closer to the realities brought on by climate change, this book felt like a very close approximation of the future – and the emotions of the characters felt achingly real. I tend to gravitate toward eco-fiction and cli-fi, but don’t often read contemporary stories. This was both – and so much more. It was utterly transporting.
I was most struck by my connection to the character, Brecht, a young man who self-describes his generation as “Generation F: failure, fuckup, fatalist; take your pick. Others call us Generation NL (out loud, nil): No Life, as in having no lives worth living, or maybe as in Get a Life, which it’s true a lot of us cannot seem to do…”
Glass was able to take me, a middle-aged white woman, into the mind of today’s youth and feel their uncertainty – which I found truly remarkable. I felt the same way with nearly every character, breathing the story of each as if it were my own.
So while this all sounds utterly glum, I still walked away feeling hopeful, because all of these characters found joy in their lives. And because the message, overall, is that humans are adaptable, resilient.
As one character thinks of what he might tell his mother if she asks how he’s doing (10 years in the future), he thinks of his response:
And, as a reader, you’re really going to believe him!
Finally, maybe my favorite part of this book is the fantastic mythical element that really ties together the theme of hope, of the importance of wishes and dreams, and of the possibility of the impossible.
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I had been wanting to read Julia Glass since I saw her YEARS ago at Tucson Festival of Books (this novel took her a decade to write!). So happy I got the chance and that this was my first exposure.
And yet… I adored this book. I didn’t expect to feel comforted the way I did – and maybe even validated about my own concerns over the past two years. I found myself nodding and feeling understood. And, somehow, even in the uncertain future painted within this book, I felt hope (more below).
The novel is told through a series of first-person narratives – nine, if I counted correctly. In Julia Glass’s capable hands, this technique works, and works well, as the reader gets a deep dive into the emotions of all the characters -- two young adults (one who writes poetry, one an actor), a biologist, a retired English teacher, an architect, a mother running a home-school co-op, and others facing a world with startling new realities – shrinking shorelines, a growing scarcity of specific food items, escalated terrorism activity, intense deportation laws.
When I requested this book, I had no idea there would be such an emphasis on environmental topics, but as we – in real life – inch closer to the realities brought on by climate change, this book felt like a very close approximation of the future – and the emotions of the characters felt achingly real. I tend to gravitate toward eco-fiction and cli-fi, but don’t often read contemporary stories. This was both – and so much more. It was utterly transporting.
I was most struck by my connection to the character, Brecht, a young man who self-describes his generation as “Generation F: failure, fuckup, fatalist; take your pick. Others call us Generation NL (out loud, nil): No Life, as in having no lives worth living, or maybe as in Get a Life, which it’s true a lot of us cannot seem to do…”
Glass was able to take me, a middle-aged white woman, into the mind of today’s youth and feel their uncertainty – which I found truly remarkable. I felt the same way with nearly every character, breathing the story of each as if it were my own.
So while this all sounds utterly glum, I still walked away feeling hopeful, because all of these characters found joy in their lives. And because the message, overall, is that humans are adaptable, resilient.
As one character thinks of what he might tell his mother if she asks how he’s doing (10 years in the future), he thinks of his response:
And, as a reader, you’re really going to believe him!
Finally, maybe my favorite part of this book is the fantastic mythical element that really ties together the theme of hope, of the importance of wishes and dreams, and of the possibility of the impossible.
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I had been wanting to read Julia Glass since I saw her YEARS ago at Tucson Festival of Books (this novel took her a decade to write!). So happy I got the chance and that this was my first exposure.
February 4, 2022
“Towns like this are, after all, mostly the sum of their stories, or the voices that tell the stories. Add to those stories this one.”
Vigil Harbor is a story about human endurance, set in a small and insulated peninsular east coast town where a group of loosely connected individuals are staking their patch of ground in an increasingly uncertain world.
It’s a world with which we are sadly becoming more and more familiar, day by day--blighted with the effects of climate change, plagued by spectacular storms, contagions, pandemics and pandemonium. But now we are propelled 10 years into the future where all these factors have become part and parcel of everyday life.
Julia Glass brings her trademark insights into her characters, who, despite the losses they’ve experienced – both on a macrocosmic and microcosmic level – never lose their humanity. We meet several of them: college student Brecht who is coping with the fallout of a terrorist attack in NYC and is now back in Vigil Harbor; Celestino, a landscaping expert whose status as an illegal immigrant makes him consistently wary; newly minted friends Mike and Margo, whose spouses have run off with each other; Austin, a famed architect whose lifework is to build homes that can withstand hurricanes…and more.
Each of these characters is in stasis, coping with past losses and fears and obstacles to moving freely forward. When two more people arrive on the peninsula – a former “friend” of Celestino who is not at all welcomed by him, and a woman in mourning for her recently deceased love, it is bound to ignite a greater crisis, and just maybe, a stimulus for personal growth.
There are the emotional devastations the characters feel individually – and those that affect them as part of humanity. At times I felt a touch of authorial intrusion as Julia Glass consistently drums home how actions have consequences and what we can anticipate if we go down the path we are currently on. I would have preferred a bit more nuance (although I most solidly agree with her on her conclusions). One of the themes that is explored is whether we are long past the age of needing to believe in magic. A fantastical element she introduces suggests that we most certainly are not.
Despite the bleakness, there is much hope: when we connect, when we give ourselves over to love, when we pursue our most authentic selves, and when we recognize that sometimes our knowledge of what is “real” is actually a dearth of imagination, we survive and even thrive. In essence, the author maps out a blueprint to what we need to consider important in this crazy world. I am so grateful to Pantheon for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Vigil Harbor is a story about human endurance, set in a small and insulated peninsular east coast town where a group of loosely connected individuals are staking their patch of ground in an increasingly uncertain world.
It’s a world with which we are sadly becoming more and more familiar, day by day--blighted with the effects of climate change, plagued by spectacular storms, contagions, pandemics and pandemonium. But now we are propelled 10 years into the future where all these factors have become part and parcel of everyday life.
Julia Glass brings her trademark insights into her characters, who, despite the losses they’ve experienced – both on a macrocosmic and microcosmic level – never lose their humanity. We meet several of them: college student Brecht who is coping with the fallout of a terrorist attack in NYC and is now back in Vigil Harbor; Celestino, a landscaping expert whose status as an illegal immigrant makes him consistently wary; newly minted friends Mike and Margo, whose spouses have run off with each other; Austin, a famed architect whose lifework is to build homes that can withstand hurricanes…and more.
Each of these characters is in stasis, coping with past losses and fears and obstacles to moving freely forward. When two more people arrive on the peninsula – a former “friend” of Celestino who is not at all welcomed by him, and a woman in mourning for her recently deceased love, it is bound to ignite a greater crisis, and just maybe, a stimulus for personal growth.
There are the emotional devastations the characters feel individually – and those that affect them as part of humanity. At times I felt a touch of authorial intrusion as Julia Glass consistently drums home how actions have consequences and what we can anticipate if we go down the path we are currently on. I would have preferred a bit more nuance (although I most solidly agree with her on her conclusions). One of the themes that is explored is whether we are long past the age of needing to believe in magic. A fantastical element she introduces suggests that we most certainly are not.
Despite the bleakness, there is much hope: when we connect, when we give ourselves over to love, when we pursue our most authentic selves, and when we recognize that sometimes our knowledge of what is “real” is actually a dearth of imagination, we survive and even thrive. In essence, the author maps out a blueprint to what we need to consider important in this crazy world. I am so grateful to Pantheon for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
May 15, 2022
In this novel, the author portrays what our world may be like ten short years from now. Hers is a dystopian view. As one of Ms. Glass' characters says:
"I'm on an island (NYC) whose shoreline is threatened, there are guards and cops and rangers and all kinds of uniformed people keeping an eye out for trouble, there are flood basins where there used to be tennis courts, there are stretches of summer where the temperature hits one hundred degrees five days in a row, and there may loom storms, bombs, contagions, pandemics, and pandemonium..."
Throughout the course of the book, we discover that many birds have been wiped out (birdsong is no longer heard), cherry tomatoes are a prized delicacy, and there have been continuing surges of Covid with periodic lock downs. And, terrorist acts are all too common.
The insular town of Vigil Harbor is located on a peninsula in Massachusetts. The people there feel a bit protected from world events. Vigil Harbor is largely affluent and its geography offers some protection. As the town's residents come to find out, they are not as protected as they think. In fact, two separate visitors come to Vigil Harbor, each secretly planning to do some harm.
The book has nine different narrators, each one sharing their inner thoughts and motivations. Until I came to know these characters, I had some difficulty sustaining my interest. For me, the novel became more interesting after I read the first one hundred pages. This is a book that requires complete concentration.
All of the characters have well-thought out back stories. My favorite character was Margo T. (Vigil Harbor's retired high school English teacher, mother of three grown daughters, and recently spurned wife of a husband who cheated on her. She has a lot of spunk.) I also liked Brecht (who dropped out of college in NYC due to a terrorist incident. A gentle soul, he is working with the town's landscaper.)
All in all, this was an interesting read.
3.8 stars
"I'm on an island (NYC) whose shoreline is threatened, there are guards and cops and rangers and all kinds of uniformed people keeping an eye out for trouble, there are flood basins where there used to be tennis courts, there are stretches of summer where the temperature hits one hundred degrees five days in a row, and there may loom storms, bombs, contagions, pandemics, and pandemonium..."
Throughout the course of the book, we discover that many birds have been wiped out (birdsong is no longer heard), cherry tomatoes are a prized delicacy, and there have been continuing surges of Covid with periodic lock downs. And, terrorist acts are all too common.
The insular town of Vigil Harbor is located on a peninsula in Massachusetts. The people there feel a bit protected from world events. Vigil Harbor is largely affluent and its geography offers some protection. As the town's residents come to find out, they are not as protected as they think. In fact, two separate visitors come to Vigil Harbor, each secretly planning to do some harm.
The book has nine different narrators, each one sharing their inner thoughts and motivations. Until I came to know these characters, I had some difficulty sustaining my interest. For me, the novel became more interesting after I read the first one hundred pages. This is a book that requires complete concentration.
All of the characters have well-thought out back stories. My favorite character was Margo T. (Vigil Harbor's retired high school English teacher, mother of three grown daughters, and recently spurned wife of a husband who cheated on her. She has a lot of spunk.) I also liked Brecht (who dropped out of college in NYC due to a terrorist incident. A gentle soul, he is working with the town's landscaper.)
All in all, this was an interesting read.
3.8 stars
March 14, 2022
Vigil Harbor by Julia Glass
This book will be published on May 3, 2022. Many thanks to the author for giving me an early reader copy.
Writing: 5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 5/5
Vigil Harbor — an historic town on the Atlantic Seaboard — is a kind of safe harbor for many of its residents. It feels protected from the ever increasing calamities of the broader world — rising oceans, increased acts of terrorism, epidemics. When a spate of divorces and a couple of strangers arrive —each with a hidden agenda — suddenly the problems of the world seem to hit a little closer to home.
Only ten years into the future, many of the characters are understandably living in a constant state of fear, anxiety, and despair. In the world (too well) portrayed by the author, Survival Studies has become a college major, climate change has diminished songbirds and summer fruit almost to extinction, coastal towns have been triaged into oblivion, various groups are hunkering down in survivalist bunkers, and eco-terrorism is on the rise with frequent and deadly bombings. One character suggests that humankind is busy “unbuilding the ark.” Other characters are stubbornly optimistic or simply moving on with their lives, adapting to a constantly changing reality as we humans have been doing for millennia.
A set of deeply drawn characters — a despairing biologist who believes he works in “marine hospice”; a retired English high school teacher bent on revenge; an optimistic architect who considers himself “an architect for the future, not the apocalypse”; a college drop out back home after a narrow escape; a brilliant landscaper still terrified of possible deportation after 40 years in the country; and others — all wind around each other while living, reflecting, worrying, and hoping. They are having children and consciously considering what it means to parent in a rapidly deteriorating landscape. They are creating art, appreciating beauty, and finding people and places to love. They are finding ways to define and follow their passions to try to make the world a better place (for some definition of better and some definition of place).
Julia Glass is one of my favorite writers — as in the actual use of words to describe, set a mood, bring to life. Her vocabulary is both large and up-to-date (it’s possible that she made up several of the more modern slang words). She creates these amazing turns of phrase — the words literally turning / tumbling around in the phrase — and so many of her sentences are gorgeous little nuggets that I grew tired of underlining. She does a pretty interesting job of describing nature, pieces of art, and different architectures. I say “interesting” because I typically don’t enjoy descriptions — I don’t visualize from words well — but her descriptions touch on more than just the visual, and I find myself reading slowly, rapt. Her depiction of technology evolution and the resulting shifts in human behavior over the next ten years was seamlessly and utterly believably done.
I valued the personal reflections, discussions, and general interactions between characters — each with sometimes wildly different perceptions of reality — what was happening, what was important, what could be done, who to blame. I appreciated the sometimes subtle differences between generations, culminating in a last few pages describing the thought processes of a young (middle school age) boy whose worldview had obviously been molded by the events of his short life.
Overall, a book that made me think, made me understand other people a little better, and gave me a set of characters that I would enjoy knowing better. I did stick to reading during the day because I am easily anxietified (my word) and wanted to be able to sleep.
Some good quotes:
“The slivers of grief in your flesh dissolve or work their way out. One day they’re gone, even if they leave you with tiny, whisper-thin scars.”
“Celestino is not a man who thinks that thorough knowledge of a person’s history, much less his or her emotional “journey,” equates with greater trust or deeper love.”
“The art she made was the obsession reaching for a language.”
“Did all intelligent, creative people need to be tangled up in thickets of neurosis, their psyches riddled with the stigmata of previous heartache?”
“She was living on less than a shoestring; she was living on a filament of fishing line.”
“I am a living redundancy. I realize: the wife not so much replaced as deleted, just as I might take my green pen … and blithely score through a student’s unnecessary adverb when the verb can stand on its philandering own.”
“Time will tell,” said Margo. “As it alway does, the fucker.”
“Is this the beginning of old age, this irrepressible pull of futility? My own father lapsed into a storm cloud of silence once he retired.”
“But that was one of my worst faults: fretting over past choices when they have been chiseled into history.”
“His step father refers to his generation as Generation F: failure, fuckup, fatalist; take your pick.”
This book will be published on May 3, 2022. Many thanks to the author for giving me an early reader copy.
Writing: 5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 5/5
Vigil Harbor — an historic town on the Atlantic Seaboard — is a kind of safe harbor for many of its residents. It feels protected from the ever increasing calamities of the broader world — rising oceans, increased acts of terrorism, epidemics. When a spate of divorces and a couple of strangers arrive —each with a hidden agenda — suddenly the problems of the world seem to hit a little closer to home.
Only ten years into the future, many of the characters are understandably living in a constant state of fear, anxiety, and despair. In the world (too well) portrayed by the author, Survival Studies has become a college major, climate change has diminished songbirds and summer fruit almost to extinction, coastal towns have been triaged into oblivion, various groups are hunkering down in survivalist bunkers, and eco-terrorism is on the rise with frequent and deadly bombings. One character suggests that humankind is busy “unbuilding the ark.” Other characters are stubbornly optimistic or simply moving on with their lives, adapting to a constantly changing reality as we humans have been doing for millennia.
A set of deeply drawn characters — a despairing biologist who believes he works in “marine hospice”; a retired English high school teacher bent on revenge; an optimistic architect who considers himself “an architect for the future, not the apocalypse”; a college drop out back home after a narrow escape; a brilliant landscaper still terrified of possible deportation after 40 years in the country; and others — all wind around each other while living, reflecting, worrying, and hoping. They are having children and consciously considering what it means to parent in a rapidly deteriorating landscape. They are creating art, appreciating beauty, and finding people and places to love. They are finding ways to define and follow their passions to try to make the world a better place (for some definition of better and some definition of place).
Julia Glass is one of my favorite writers — as in the actual use of words to describe, set a mood, bring to life. Her vocabulary is both large and up-to-date (it’s possible that she made up several of the more modern slang words). She creates these amazing turns of phrase — the words literally turning / tumbling around in the phrase — and so many of her sentences are gorgeous little nuggets that I grew tired of underlining. She does a pretty interesting job of describing nature, pieces of art, and different architectures. I say “interesting” because I typically don’t enjoy descriptions — I don’t visualize from words well — but her descriptions touch on more than just the visual, and I find myself reading slowly, rapt. Her depiction of technology evolution and the resulting shifts in human behavior over the next ten years was seamlessly and utterly believably done.
I valued the personal reflections, discussions, and general interactions between characters — each with sometimes wildly different perceptions of reality — what was happening, what was important, what could be done, who to blame. I appreciated the sometimes subtle differences between generations, culminating in a last few pages describing the thought processes of a young (middle school age) boy whose worldview had obviously been molded by the events of his short life.
Overall, a book that made me think, made me understand other people a little better, and gave me a set of characters that I would enjoy knowing better. I did stick to reading during the day because I am easily anxietified (my word) and wanted to be able to sleep.
Some good quotes:
“The slivers of grief in your flesh dissolve or work their way out. One day they’re gone, even if they leave you with tiny, whisper-thin scars.”
“Celestino is not a man who thinks that thorough knowledge of a person’s history, much less his or her emotional “journey,” equates with greater trust or deeper love.”
“The art she made was the obsession reaching for a language.”
“Did all intelligent, creative people need to be tangled up in thickets of neurosis, their psyches riddled with the stigmata of previous heartache?”
“She was living on less than a shoestring; she was living on a filament of fishing line.”
“I am a living redundancy. I realize: the wife not so much replaced as deleted, just as I might take my green pen … and blithely score through a student’s unnecessary adverb when the verb can stand on its philandering own.”
“Time will tell,” said Margo. “As it alway does, the fucker.”
“Is this the beginning of old age, this irrepressible pull of futility? My own father lapsed into a storm cloud of silence once he retired.”
“But that was one of my worst faults: fretting over past choices when they have been chiseled into history.”
“His step father refers to his generation as Generation F: failure, fuckup, fatalist; take your pick.”
June 1, 2022
Vigil Harbor
I loved this novel, in fact, I think it is my favorite book by Julia Glass. Set in the next decade, after a pandemic and in the midst of ongoing climate challenge, Vigil Harbor is a small East Coast town where people are just living their lives in a time when they’re not quite sure what that means. The frisson of anxiety beneath the town is resulting in marriage breakups among the YC (Yacht Club) and some strange behavior. The stepson of the town’s renowned architect of climate-survivable homes has returned from New York after being injured in a climate-action explosion, an event about which he remembers almost nothing. A woman from Texas has arrived to write an article about that same architect. The local arborist receives a visit from an old acquaintance, someone he is not happy to see.
Told in alternating points of view, Glass introduces us to the characters with depth, elegance, and humor. Each person is fully realized, their hearts exposed. We see how the lives of the adults already differ from the way young people are forging their ways and imagining the future.
I am grateful to Netgalley and Knopf for access to this title.
If this sounds too dark, it’s not. There’s a moving element of magic in an unexpected place. “Vigil Harbor” is engrossing, enlightening, and hard to put down.
I loved this novel, in fact, I think it is my favorite book by Julia Glass. Set in the next decade, after a pandemic and in the midst of ongoing climate challenge, Vigil Harbor is a small East Coast town where people are just living their lives in a time when they’re not quite sure what that means. The frisson of anxiety beneath the town is resulting in marriage breakups among the YC (Yacht Club) and some strange behavior. The stepson of the town’s renowned architect of climate-survivable homes has returned from New York after being injured in a climate-action explosion, an event about which he remembers almost nothing. A woman from Texas has arrived to write an article about that same architect. The local arborist receives a visit from an old acquaintance, someone he is not happy to see.
Told in alternating points of view, Glass introduces us to the characters with depth, elegance, and humor. Each person is fully realized, their hearts exposed. We see how the lives of the adults already differ from the way young people are forging their ways and imagining the future.
I am grateful to Netgalley and Knopf for access to this title.
If this sounds too dark, it’s not. There’s a moving element of magic in an unexpected place. “Vigil Harbor” is engrossing, enlightening, and hard to put down.
August 27, 2022
I’ll be honest, I really didn’t understand what this book was about. The synopsis seemed true for the first 50 pages or so, but then it seemed to veer into territory I was unfamiliar with. Not only that, the pace was incredibly slow and I kept waiting for something to hook me but nothing did.
I think my biggest complaint is the amount of characters. It alternated each chapter, which I can handle and like in books, but it seemed to shift timeframes, losing even more of my interest since I couldn’t tell how each person was connected.
VIGIL HARBOR is set in the future, but doesn’t tell you when. It’s post-apocalyptic filled with activists, yet seemed evil.
Big thank you to Pantheon Books for the gifted copy.
Content warnings: I really wish I knew.
I think my biggest complaint is the amount of characters. It alternated each chapter, which I can handle and like in books, but it seemed to shift timeframes, losing even more of my interest since I couldn’t tell how each person was connected.
VIGIL HARBOR is set in the future, but doesn’t tell you when. It’s post-apocalyptic filled with activists, yet seemed evil.
Big thank you to Pantheon Books for the gifted copy.
Content warnings: I really wish I knew.
November 10, 2022
I think, more than any novel I have read in the last three years, this one best captures the zeitgeist of the times. It is set in the near future, with the primary story taking place over a little more than a year around roughly 2034. There is vocabulary that is just different enough to signal the future without seeming at all artificial. The story is told through alternating viewpoints - each chapter is that of either one of the book's characters or an omniscient narrator.
The title of the book is the location of the story; Vigil Harbor is a gentrified, insular, largely well-to-do, and near-exclusively white community sitting on the Atlantic Ocean on a Massachusetts peninsula. "You can grow up ignorant and selfish inside the most pious frugality. And you can grow up toward moral obligation, toward . . . humility, or how about a sense of mission? Yes, you can grow toward that light even in a place like this."
The primary characters are predominantly people living in Vigil Harbor at the time of the story, most of whom are well-off members of the yacht club. Austin Kepner is an architect whose wife Miriam works at his firm. They've been settled in the community for over a decade after relocating there from New York City. Margo Tattersall is the retired high school English teacher, born and raised there; and Mike Iliescu is also a native and a marine biologist. Their respective spouses, Tom and Deeanne, have recently & suddenly taken off together to the wilderness in a move neither Margo nor Mike saw coming, causing their collective five adult children who have all moved away to worry about them. The one more working-class couple is Celestino and Connie, who have an eight-year-old son Raul. Connie was born and raised in Vigil Harbor, and she successfully escaped from there for about five years, but returned when her mother became ill with cancer; she runs and teaches art for a home-school cooperative for a few children. Her husband Celestino is an arborist who was born in Guatemala but has owned & operated a high-class landscaping business in the community for decades. These people all know each other; they are neighbors to at least some degree; they are acquainted with each other's families to at least some degree. "As an almost-island, Vigil Harbor has not suffered as badly during waves of contagion as other, landlocked towns. It has so far, you might say willfully, remained aloof from political extremes. Town Meetings remain bipartisan in a cantankerous but ultimately collegial fashion now regarded as arcane in most parts of the country. . . . But unsettling times will unsettle everyone."
About a year and a half earlier, an ecological activist group Oceloti had accelerated from defiant acts for preventing ecological destruction to violence, when they set off a bomb at New York's Union Square. Nineteen people (not including the intended target) died, 7 were wounded, and 2 were missing after the explosion. Miriam Kepner's son Brecht was living in NYC at the time of the explosion, and he returned home to live with Miriam and Austin for a while in Vigil Harbor while he recovers from what most perceive as PTSD. Meanwhile, Oceloti seems to be ramping up its violence. "I think about vengeance, and I think about righteousness, and I think about people for whom success is measured in body count."
Vigil Harbor is not the kind of place that anyone accidentally passes through, located as it is on a peninsula and away from any main highway. Outsiders tend to bring disruption. A Texas journalist Petra Coyle arrives to do background for a proposed documentary about the architect Austin Kepner. And an old acquaintance of Celestino's, Ernesto Soltera, drops in unexpectedly when his traveling companion is delayed in meeting him.
"Vigil Harbor has had its waves of contagion, shared in the fatality and mourning triggered by disease as well as war, but we forgot that we are not immune to threats engendered by politics alone. If we feel righteous about a cause, an inquiry, we donate rather than demonstrate. I think what frightens people the most, now that bits and pieces of the story have been stitched together, is that the threat passed right through our streets, our homes, even stayed over a few nights, while most of us carried on our comfortable lives." This novel is that story they stitched together after the fact. It is also quite likely the story happening all around each of us every day as we too carry on our comfortable lives.
The title of the book is the location of the story; Vigil Harbor is a gentrified, insular, largely well-to-do, and near-exclusively white community sitting on the Atlantic Ocean on a Massachusetts peninsula. "You can grow up ignorant and selfish inside the most pious frugality. And you can grow up toward moral obligation, toward . . . humility, or how about a sense of mission? Yes, you can grow toward that light even in a place like this."
The primary characters are predominantly people living in Vigil Harbor at the time of the story, most of whom are well-off members of the yacht club. Austin Kepner is an architect whose wife Miriam works at his firm. They've been settled in the community for over a decade after relocating there from New York City. Margo Tattersall is the retired high school English teacher, born and raised there; and Mike Iliescu is also a native and a marine biologist. Their respective spouses, Tom and Deeanne, have recently & suddenly taken off together to the wilderness in a move neither Margo nor Mike saw coming, causing their collective five adult children who have all moved away to worry about them. The one more working-class couple is Celestino and Connie, who have an eight-year-old son Raul. Connie was born and raised in Vigil Harbor, and she successfully escaped from there for about five years, but returned when her mother became ill with cancer; she runs and teaches art for a home-school cooperative for a few children. Her husband Celestino is an arborist who was born in Guatemala but has owned & operated a high-class landscaping business in the community for decades. These people all know each other; they are neighbors to at least some degree; they are acquainted with each other's families to at least some degree. "As an almost-island, Vigil Harbor has not suffered as badly during waves of contagion as other, landlocked towns. It has so far, you might say willfully, remained aloof from political extremes. Town Meetings remain bipartisan in a cantankerous but ultimately collegial fashion now regarded as arcane in most parts of the country. . . . But unsettling times will unsettle everyone."
About a year and a half earlier, an ecological activist group Oceloti had accelerated from defiant acts for preventing ecological destruction to violence, when they set off a bomb at New York's Union Square. Nineteen people (not including the intended target) died, 7 were wounded, and 2 were missing after the explosion. Miriam Kepner's son Brecht was living in NYC at the time of the explosion, and he returned home to live with Miriam and Austin for a while in Vigil Harbor while he recovers from what most perceive as PTSD. Meanwhile, Oceloti seems to be ramping up its violence. "I think about vengeance, and I think about righteousness, and I think about people for whom success is measured in body count."
Vigil Harbor is not the kind of place that anyone accidentally passes through, located as it is on a peninsula and away from any main highway. Outsiders tend to bring disruption. A Texas journalist Petra Coyle arrives to do background for a proposed documentary about the architect Austin Kepner. And an old acquaintance of Celestino's, Ernesto Soltera, drops in unexpectedly when his traveling companion is delayed in meeting him.
"Vigil Harbor has had its waves of contagion, shared in the fatality and mourning triggered by disease as well as war, but we forgot that we are not immune to threats engendered by politics alone. If we feel righteous about a cause, an inquiry, we donate rather than demonstrate. I think what frightens people the most, now that bits and pieces of the story have been stitched together, is that the threat passed right through our streets, our homes, even stayed over a few nights, while most of us carried on our comfortable lives." This novel is that story they stitched together after the fact. It is also quite likely the story happening all around each of us every day as we too carry on our comfortable lives.
June 2, 2022
This book is set in a near future version of a coastal village in Massachusetts where the COVID-19 pandemic is referred to as a thing in the past, and the effects of the climate change have transformed how people live. The story is told from multiple perspectives, mostly of people living in the village.
The early chapters engaged my attention fully. The plot is interesting and Julia Glass has such a fascinating storytelling style. Yet, as the story (slowly) moved along, I had trouble staying invested and keeping up with the many narrators. While I did finish the book, I have to admit that I skim-read the last 80 pages or so.
If you're in the mood for a fiction that makes you ponder of the future and you don't mind the slow pace, I'd recommend this book. However, if you're looking for a light read, this is definitely not it.
Many thanks for the ARC received through the Goodreads giveaway. Publication date: May 2022.
The early chapters engaged my attention fully. The plot is interesting and Julia Glass has such a fascinating storytelling style. Yet, as the story (slowly) moved along, I had trouble staying invested and keeping up with the many narrators. While I did finish the book, I have to admit that I skim-read the last 80 pages or so.
If you're in the mood for a fiction that makes you ponder of the future and you don't mind the slow pace, I'd recommend this book. However, if you're looking for a light read, this is definitely not it.
Many thanks for the ARC received through the Goodreads giveaway. Publication date: May 2022.
February 14, 2022
I love reading this author. She creates characters and stories that we can all enjoy. We can see ourselves there. We can see our friends there.
The story told includes a terrorist attack in NYC, mentions a pandemic while slowly making these characters real in our reading. The characters, like so many, survive daily living until. Until divorce rocks apart lives, old friends come back and bring their own disruptive reality into the others world. Then characters are starting to question their life choices and some make changes. I loved the inclusion of a character that is a touch fantasy or is she?
I hate to give out too much. This was a really good read and I can’t wait to read the reviews on the story.
The story told includes a terrorist attack in NYC, mentions a pandemic while slowly making these characters real in our reading. The characters, like so many, survive daily living until. Until divorce rocks apart lives, old friends come back and bring their own disruptive reality into the others world. Then characters are starting to question their life choices and some make changes. I loved the inclusion of a character that is a touch fantasy or is she?
I hate to give out too much. This was a really good read and I can’t wait to read the reviews on the story.
October 8, 2022
Dystopian novel set in the near future (2030s) in the small fictional community of Vigil Harbor, Massachusetts. American society is dealing with climate change, eco-terrorism, pandemic fallout, immigration bans, and escalating political divisiveness. The primary plotline is based on a group of ecoterrorists that disrupt this privileged and (mostly) sheltered town.
There are nine primary characters, each with a distinctive voice. Mike is a marine biologist tracking decline in sea life. Egon is Mike’s gay son who is in the closet. Margo is a retired high school English teacher whose husband having an affair with Mike’s wife. Miriam has remarried several years after losing her husband to COVID-19. Her son Brecht survived a terrorist act and has returned home to live with his mother. His stepfather Austin is an architect designing housing that will withstand the worsening climate conditions. Connie is helping to run her son’s homeschool group. Her husband, Celestino, is a Guatemalan landscaper who is worried about immigration issues. Petra is posing as a journalist to find out more about her partner’s suicide, and thinks Austin is hiding information.
I have read one other novel by Julia Glass (Three Junes) which I enjoyed very much so I thought I’d give her latest a try. It is a sprawling epic that paints a portrait of an entire community and their relationships. `It is amazing that the author can write all these characters and their backstories in a way that the reader can easily follow. She excels at character development. These people are flawed and believable. Many are dealing with grief. All are dealing with fears. Other themes include security, parenting, trust, and identity.
There is even a small element of magical realism, but I am not convinced this book needed it. There is already enough going on without it. This dystopian society is an extrapolation of current issues. I am not sure I can envision the ecological movement going to these extremes (at least I hope not), but it is definitely thought-provoking. It can get a bit depressing at times, but in the end, it is a story about the importance of love, understanding, acceptance, and the need to bond together to face the challenges of the future.
There are nine primary characters, each with a distinctive voice. Mike is a marine biologist tracking decline in sea life. Egon is Mike’s gay son who is in the closet. Margo is a retired high school English teacher whose husband having an affair with Mike’s wife. Miriam has remarried several years after losing her husband to COVID-19. Her son Brecht survived a terrorist act and has returned home to live with his mother. His stepfather Austin is an architect designing housing that will withstand the worsening climate conditions. Connie is helping to run her son’s homeschool group. Her husband, Celestino, is a Guatemalan landscaper who is worried about immigration issues. Petra is posing as a journalist to find out more about her partner’s suicide, and thinks Austin is hiding information.
I have read one other novel by Julia Glass (Three Junes) which I enjoyed very much so I thought I’d give her latest a try. It is a sprawling epic that paints a portrait of an entire community and their relationships. `It is amazing that the author can write all these characters and their backstories in a way that the reader can easily follow. She excels at character development. These people are flawed and believable. Many are dealing with grief. All are dealing with fears. Other themes include security, parenting, trust, and identity.
There is even a small element of magical realism, but I am not convinced this book needed it. There is already enough going on without it. This dystopian society is an extrapolation of current issues. I am not sure I can envision the ecological movement going to these extremes (at least I hope not), but it is definitely thought-provoking. It can get a bit depressing at times, but in the end, it is a story about the importance of love, understanding, acceptance, and the need to bond together to face the challenges of the future.
May 12, 2022
“Vigil Harbor” by Julia Glass, is set in the near future where the forewarned climate catastrophe has occurred. The eponymous setting is a peninsula off the Massachusetts coastline, a small, isolated, and insular village called Vigil Harbor.
There are many first-person narrators: Brecht, Petra, Austin, Mike, Connie, Margo, Miriam, and Egon. These characters are all interrelated, and they all provide unique and interesting points of view, as well as hints at several mysteries that will gradually unfold.
Glass’ near future America is a domestic-terrorist-ridden, anti-immigrant society, with hardening boarders. Vigil Harbor’s isolation and largely privileged “limousine liberal” denizens, have been exempt from many of the harsh realities of the times, until two strangers come to town.
Glass has produced a wonderfully compelling and suspenseful story, with vividly realized characters, a highly unique “magical mystery”, and plenty of food for thought. The denouement dragged unnecessarily (editor, please!) which brought the stars down to 4.5 for me.
There are many first-person narrators: Brecht, Petra, Austin, Mike, Connie, Margo, Miriam, and Egon. These characters are all interrelated, and they all provide unique and interesting points of view, as well as hints at several mysteries that will gradually unfold.
Glass’ near future America is a domestic-terrorist-ridden, anti-immigrant society, with hardening boarders. Vigil Harbor’s isolation and largely privileged “limousine liberal” denizens, have been exempt from many of the harsh realities of the times, until two strangers come to town.
Glass has produced a wonderfully compelling and suspenseful story, with vividly realized characters, a highly unique “magical mystery”, and plenty of food for thought. The denouement dragged unnecessarily (editor, please!) which brought the stars down to 4.5 for me.
May 31, 2022
3.5. A dystopian view of our earth, actually on coast of my beloved MA, 10 years from now. Characters developed and somewhat interesting. The typical Vigil Harbor resident is white and privileged I was never truly invested but enjoyed it enough. Climate, ocean, mystical selkies, land erosion all keystones. Without any doubt, whether one connects to the novel or not, our Earth is in grave peril.
December 6, 2022
I have always enjoyed the works of Julia Glass and this one was no exception.
This tale, told roughly ten years in the future -- around 2034, includes several families who live in the town of Vigil Harbor. They all interact with each other but all have their own stories and situations with which they are dealing.
The story carries the reader along through situations as benign as divorces, marriages, and pregnancies and as dire as bombings, terrorist kidnappings, and disappearing land due to climate change flooding. It just about covers the whole gamut! But Glass has a wonderful way of making it all come together and the characters seem very real. It is easy to see each of their situations and actually care about them, hoping that things will turn out for the best.
I enjoyed this novel for its sense of real life, but also because it felt like looking into the future. It just made me want to keep on reading -- and I did!
I’d like to thank NetGalley, Julia Glass, and Pantheon for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for my unbiased review.
This tale, told roughly ten years in the future -- around 2034, includes several families who live in the town of Vigil Harbor. They all interact with each other but all have their own stories and situations with which they are dealing.
The story carries the reader along through situations as benign as divorces, marriages, and pregnancies and as dire as bombings, terrorist kidnappings, and disappearing land due to climate change flooding. It just about covers the whole gamut! But Glass has a wonderful way of making it all come together and the characters seem very real. It is easy to see each of their situations and actually care about them, hoping that things will turn out for the best.
I enjoyed this novel for its sense of real life, but also because it felt like looking into the future. It just made me want to keep on reading -- and I did!
I’d like to thank NetGalley, Julia Glass, and Pantheon for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for my unbiased review.
April 26, 2022
This panoramic yet tightly plotted novel follows the intersecting paths of half a dozen residents of the eponymous coastal town. We read about the events of their daily lives, their grocery shopping and their children's art projects, and about the traumas large and small that have shaped them - and, in the second half of the book, something larger - in the words of one character, an intersection of their lives with history.
The story is set in a near future - about ten years from now - that is highly recognizable but very different from our present. The children of Covid-19 have grown up. Environmental degradation has become a fact of life, and responses range from activism to despair, end-of-days fanaticism to terrorism. The scope of humanity's outlook has narrowed, but people haven't changed. They still marry and divorce, bring children into the world and hope breathlessly for their future.
Vigil Harbor is at its best when it focuses on its characters and their humanity. The writing is beautiful, the characterization both subtle and profound. If it had been a novel only about these interwoven lives in this small town, I would have given it five stars.
But too often the politics of the novel intrude: climate change and deforestation and ocean acidification, and the characters' denialist or extremist responses. Although these are, of course, critical issues, I found myself distracted by the details. Really, I would wonder, will there be no fish left in ten years, and no legal immigration?
Of course it doesn't matter if the world of the story is our actual future - but when I was reading, it felt like it did. It felt like Vigil Harbor had things to say - things about love and loyalty, language and self-delusion, humanity and its place among the species. Most of the time, the book and its message felt like it belonged in our world, or a version of it, but sometimes - when I read that plums had simply stopped existing several years previously, meaning a few years from now, because of climate change - I had a hard time suspending my disbelief.
[I received a complimentary ARC from NetGalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.]
The story is set in a near future - about ten years from now - that is highly recognizable but very different from our present. The children of Covid-19 have grown up. Environmental degradation has become a fact of life, and responses range from activism to despair, end-of-days fanaticism to terrorism. The scope of humanity's outlook has narrowed, but people haven't changed. They still marry and divorce, bring children into the world and hope breathlessly for their future.
Vigil Harbor is at its best when it focuses on its characters and their humanity. The writing is beautiful, the characterization both subtle and profound. If it had been a novel only about these interwoven lives in this small town, I would have given it five stars.
But too often the politics of the novel intrude: climate change and deforestation and ocean acidification, and the characters' denialist or extremist responses. Although these are, of course, critical issues, I found myself distracted by the details. Really, I would wonder, will there be no fish left in ten years, and no legal immigration?
Of course it doesn't matter if the world of the story is our actual future - but when I was reading, it felt like it did. It felt like Vigil Harbor had things to say - things about love and loyalty, language and self-delusion, humanity and its place among the species. Most of the time, the book and its message felt like it belonged in our world, or a version of it, but sometimes - when I read that plums had simply stopped existing several years previously, meaning a few years from now, because of climate change - I had a hard time suspending my disbelief.
[I received a complimentary ARC from NetGalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.]
September 1, 2022
I liked this book a lot and I compared it to "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout. It tells the story of a small New England town through the lives of several of the residents there. It is fun and exciting and relatable. When strangers come to town, strange events occur and there's a lot of plot lines crossing over each other. The author is a National Book Award winning author for a previous novel : "Three Junes". My only quibble with this book is that once the denouement occurred, I was ready for the author to wrap up the story. But she just went on and on. I guess this is for all the readers who really fall in love with characters and don't want to say good-bye to them. For me the last 100 pages or so felt like overkill and I was more than ready for it to be over.
March 16, 2022
Julia Glass has always been one of my favorite authors. In her latest novel she delves into a small coastal town that at first glance appears to be a utopia for its residents. Because of their exclusivity they are immune to pressures from the outside world. But as the story unfolds I was drawn into the lives of the various characters as they traveled the various pathways set before them and their handling of sometimes conflicting and dangerous situations.
Yes, a Garden of Eden would be wonderful if there were no wars, world catastrophes, pandemics or terrorists. Adam and Eve both found out that danger can slip inside that safe bubble, even when you least expect it.
Highly recommended!
Yes, a Garden of Eden would be wonderful if there were no wars, world catastrophes, pandemics or terrorists. Adam and Eve both found out that danger can slip inside that safe bubble, even when you least expect it.
Highly recommended!
July 22, 2023
This book is not for me. I respect the author’s writing and deep dives into many, many characters. I admired how she put us into the future, just 10 years away, so we could catch a glimpse into how climate change and terrorism and politics are shaping our lives. That part was pretty depressing actually. But this book was wayyyy too long recounting mundane details that have no purpose. And the “climactic” scene was over so fast and then described in pieces through characters’ memories. Just too many words and not enough plot for me. Oh and the mermaid/selkie story line was pointless. Ok I’ll stop now.
June 4, 2022
Multiple voices provide a polyphonic window into Glass’s novel, as each of eight CHs provide their personal background and domestic issues, as well as the state of the world and northern coastal MA Vigil Harbor. Maestro Glass propels the Story Line along as she has each CH solo for us describing a world some years in the near future where climate change has proven to be true science with global chaos, rising ocean tides, and more and more devastating storms. Some, like Vigil Harbor, remain as insular as possible just trying to raise their kids, dodge the next health dilemma, and stay well. Others pursue like-minded political survivalists and form their own protected and armed communities. Through these various CH lenses the themes of immigration, grief, trauma, education, art, science, and public violence, as well as climate change pervade the novel well-integrated into the details of the Plot and dialogue. Glass weaves in some magical realism and that thread can be perceived by readers and CHs as wishful thinking or mental illness and forms a unifying metaphor that throbs with sadness for the condition of Mother Earth. Beginning, ending, and Interspersed after each 1st POV’s testimony, using a more fanciful italicized type, are philosophical musings as chapters. Sometimes giving the reader more Plot detail and information but also serving as a questioning omniscient narrator who tells more than shows, even when adding humor and a little judgement. I feel this was unnecessary when the author does a great job within the CH chapters; and therefore, makes the italicized entrees somewhat redundant. Whether it is authorial hubris in love with her own language, or an editor’s request, I feel a few more sentences added to CHs’ parts would have sufficed in their place. But all in all, this is a chewy book that I will be thinking about for a long time and it would make an excellent discussion book. The ending was satisfactory but realistically open-ended just like life. Glass’s strength has always been her CHs as they integrate with her story and settings. She creates Tone using Mystery and Thriller constructs, but make no mistake—this is a Literary Relationship story full of bright, melodic language, and pithy consuming themes. Readers hungering for the same stylish complexity and CH-driven novels as Tartt’s The Goldfinch and/or Rothschild’s The Probability of Love may enjoy.
March 17, 2023
Set about 20 years in the future. Climate change is destroying the coastlines. Big, destructive weather events are the norm. Mass extinctions, including songbirds, are something to shield the children from, along with the news of terrorist activity in NYC. The privileged residents of Vigil Harbor have a long and proud history of seafaring, and they mostly avoid the bad news, until they don't. Told from multiple perspectives in an easy to follow way. Two characters are thrust together after their spouses run off with each other. One woman manages a home school co-op with other concerned parents. An architect builds climate-proof homes for rich people. You get everybody's backstory and it all comes together in a satisfying way, with a little magical realism thrown in. The writing is very good. I enjoyed the boating, swimming, fishing culture.
May 29, 2022
I was nervous about starting this one because, ugh, near future stuff that includes the pandemic (and not exactly a rosy view of how this whole thing will go). But as other reviewers said, it's bizarrely hopeful. It acknowledges all the terrible things going on in the world and admits, yeah, it could get worse, but it shows that a quiet normal life with joy and little pleasures is still possible even with the everything of everything. Very impressive that it could be realistic and optimistic at the same time, but the author pulled it off.
I enjoyed all the interwoven stories, but Petra was by far the favorite (I enjoyed the lesbian romance with magic realism the most, what a shocker). I didn't like the narrator for the Brecht sections, but that's just a personal preference. Something about his voice just started grating on me by the end of the book.
I enjoyed all the interwoven stories, but Petra was by far the favorite (I enjoyed the lesbian romance with magic realism the most, what a shocker). I didn't like the narrator for the Brecht sections, but that's just a personal preference. Something about his voice just started grating on me by the end of the book.
October 25, 2022
An all too believable depiction of a possible near future (12 years or so from now). Covid is in the past, although there are periodic lock downs for this or that other virus. Domestic terrorism is common, as groups on all points of the political spectrum feel that's the only way to get attention. Climate change has affected all aspects of life. Meanwhile the folks of Vigil Harbor feel pretty safe and well away from the chaos of the big cities. It really made me think about how I (and most of the people I know) feel, secure in our small town lives in the middle of North America, away from it all. Well written and very thought provoking. I would say, I'm not sure what the selkie part of the story was trying to say. It seemed a bit superflous.
April 12, 2022
"You have to pay attention to the things you love, and you have to fight for the ones that matter most: that's what the tree warrior said to the mothers that night in the kitchen." Julia Glass, Vigil Harbor
Reading this 400+ page novel was often like being in that harbor on a foggy morning. Am I sure I know what's happening? My vision is not quite right. What happens when one of our senses is failing? We rely on a different sense. Which is exactly what I did. I leaned into the feel of the story, the rhythm of the waves and the individual characters. It became very clear that one incident could be remembered and told as many different ways as those who lived it. Tragedy, wonder, fright.
The story had many interwoven characters of all ages, beliefs and circumstances. And they played a role in the larger, often metaphoric story. Many times it reminded me of Leave the World Behind with a whimsical, not sure what was happening in the world beyond the front door feeling - many times characters relied on the radio or television to learn of violence, storms and tragedy just outside their door.
I found the characters hard to keep track of and yet they all melding together like a neighborhood with multiple generations and stories they tell. Julia Glass tells a good story, and one that stays with you for quite some time.
Reading this 400+ page novel was often like being in that harbor on a foggy morning. Am I sure I know what's happening? My vision is not quite right. What happens when one of our senses is failing? We rely on a different sense. Which is exactly what I did. I leaned into the feel of the story, the rhythm of the waves and the individual characters. It became very clear that one incident could be remembered and told as many different ways as those who lived it. Tragedy, wonder, fright.
The story had many interwoven characters of all ages, beliefs and circumstances. And they played a role in the larger, often metaphoric story. Many times it reminded me of Leave the World Behind with a whimsical, not sure what was happening in the world beyond the front door feeling - many times characters relied on the radio or television to learn of violence, storms and tragedy just outside their door.
I found the characters hard to keep track of and yet they all melding together like a neighborhood with multiple generations and stories they tell. Julia Glass tells a good story, and one that stays with you for quite some time.
November 18, 2023
I dunno. I just dunno. I’m sure that there was a meaning in here that I should be wrapping around me as this story takes place a mere decade from “now” and the worldwide pandemic. The descriptions are lovely but the characters flopped all over each other for me and the complexity of the plot left me with a permanent crease between my eyes.
There is a lot of stuff to dig into for book club.
There is a lot of stuff to dig into for book club.
June 16, 2022
I admire what Glass did here even if I didn’t love reading the book. Her acknowledgments explain that she is teaching a lot and has been influenced by her students to try new things in terms of her writing. I imagine being around creative young people also increases her awareness of the various anxieties about our future as a society and planet.
Her book is ambitious in terms of envisioning a dystopian setting 10 years after the pandemic. Much of it is about climate change and political divisiveness including violence and terrorism. That made it a very bleak, if prophetic, read. I think she achieves her goal. The only storyline I didn’t relate at all to was Issa and Petra… just seemed contrived.
So, my three stars are for this not really being an enjoyable read and I had saved it for vacation. I give it 4 stars in terms of her concept and the writing.
Her book is ambitious in terms of envisioning a dystopian setting 10 years after the pandemic. Much of it is about climate change and political divisiveness including violence and terrorism. That made it a very bleak, if prophetic, read. I think she achieves her goal. The only storyline I didn’t relate at all to was Issa and Petra… just seemed contrived.
So, my three stars are for this not really being an enjoyable read and I had saved it for vacation. I give it 4 stars in terms of her concept and the writing.
August 5, 2022
Although I liked this book and found it more complex than it might seem on the surface, I'm just wondering if anyone can write a book straight through anymore and not one where every chapter is narrated by a different character. Does every book these days need to be Rashomon?
Vigil Harbor is a fictional coastal town in the not too distant future which has to date escaped the effects of climate change even as the towns around them give up more land to the sea. Yet the inhabitants are vigilant and careful, preparing their town as best they can and preparing themselves by withdrawing more and more into their own community as other communities are beset by social upheaval.
A few events coincide to disrupt this sense of calm. A long-time married couple separates; two strangers come to town; a terrorist event in Boston reverberates up and down the coast.
I wouldn't describe this book as dystopian. Its tone is calm and its cultural references familiar. This makes is all the more unsettling as we see where we may be headed. Smugness turns to fear. Class divides become more stark. Everyone must be alert. Vigil Harbor indeed.
Vigil Harbor is a fictional coastal town in the not too distant future which has to date escaped the effects of climate change even as the towns around them give up more land to the sea. Yet the inhabitants are vigilant and careful, preparing their town as best they can and preparing themselves by withdrawing more and more into their own community as other communities are beset by social upheaval.
A few events coincide to disrupt this sense of calm. A long-time married couple separates; two strangers come to town; a terrorist event in Boston reverberates up and down the coast.
I wouldn't describe this book as dystopian. Its tone is calm and its cultural references familiar. This makes is all the more unsettling as we see where we may be headed. Smugness turns to fear. Class divides become more stark. Everyone must be alert. Vigil Harbor indeed.
May 27, 2022
Vigil Harbor by Julia Glass takes place ten years into the future. I really didn't want to read a book with mentions of the covid pandemic but it just gives some flashbacks to what life was like before covid. And now climate change has changed the world. The story is told from multiple perspectives which is fine if there's two or three. This book was told from EIGHT different characters. Ms. Glass makes this book work though I don't believe it was one for me. I guess it made me feel nervous while reading it and I just didn't care for that many different characters. But it was an interesting read!
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
May 12, 2022
Im a big Julia Glass fan but this one was a bit disappointing to me. Set in Virgil Harbor (a disguised Marlborough) it introduces a series of characters who have lived their lives in this small protected town and two “strangers” who cause havoc. I found the story pretty contrived and the setting of a decade from now just awkward. I keep reading each of her new releases but hoping the next one is back to Three Junes quality
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May 24, 2022Made it through 20% of this 17 hr. audiobook and found it super sarcastic, angry and sad. Instead of illuminating the climate change aspect and building toward something that holds virtue, the tone just felt depressing and hopeless. Had to return it, pronto.
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August 16, 2022No rating because I gave up at about 36%. I kept picking this up and then putting it down. I just couldn’t get into the story. There were a lot of characters to try to keep track of. I eventually realized I didn’t care about them, so I returned it to the library.
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